Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures

Vulgate Bible

328 folios on parchment (prepared in the manner of Southern Europe, thin, polished flesh side, occasional speckling), modern foliation in pencil top outer corner recto, missing a quire after f. 68v, with the end of Judges, Ruth, and the beginning of 1 Kings, missing one leaf after f. 289v, with the end of Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, and most of 2 Thessalonians, and four leaves and a quire after f. 310v, with the end of the Apocalypse and the beginning of the Interpretation of Hebrew Names, else complete (collation i2 ii6 iii-vii12 viii-xi14 xii18 [-14 through 18, following f. 137, apparently cancelled with no loss of text] xiii-xxiii12 xxiv12 [-9, following f. 289, with loss of text] xxv12 xxvi10 [-7 through 10, following f. 310, with loss of text] xxvii14 xxviii4), no leaf or quire signatures, prickings often remain in top and bottom margins, and occasionally in outer margin, e.g. ff. 3-7, 160-161, (justification 120-119 x 81-80 mm.), copied by at least three scribes with varying layouts: quires i-vii (through f. 68v), horizontal catchwords, inner lower margin, ruled in lead with an extra set of double rules in the upper margin for the running titles, single vertical bounding lines (often not full-length), copied in two columns of fifty-six lines in a small upright gothic bookhand with some documentary/cursive features, including an ‘d’ with a tall slanted ascender (scribe is not very disciplined, and his letter forms vary); quires viii-xii, ff. 69-137v, quires numbered lower margin in roman numerals on the last leaf of the quire, beginning with ‘i’ on f. 82v, ruling pattern is the same, but copied in two columns of fifty-eight lines in a very tiny precise gothic bookhand; quires xiii-xxvii, ff. 138-328v, vertical catchwords, very bottom, inner margin (some partially trimmed), ruled in lead, with the top two and bottom two horizontal rules full across, and with an extra set of double rules for the running titles, full-length vertical bounding lines, usually triple between the columns, copied in a small, precise gothic bookhand in two columns of fifty-four lines; red and blue running titles and roman numerals numbering the chapters, with small flourishes in red and blue, verses are daubed with red only exceptionally (and these may be later additions), e.g., ff. 3rv, and 77v-83; chapters ff. 3-137v, and 156v-end, begin with one line initials, alternately red and blue, placed within the line of text, or in the margin when the beginning of a chapter coincides with the beginning of a new line (sometimes with simple contrasting pen decoration), ff. 138-156, chapters begin with two-line alternately red and blue initials with pen decoration in the other color (some red initials with purple pen decoration) on a new line, numbered in the margins; NUMEROUS VERY FINE PEN INITIALS preceding prologues and each book of the Bible, 3- to 16-line (with ‘I’ up to 32-lines, e.g. f. 128) in red or blue with pen decoration in the opposite color, violet is also used with some red initials, extending into the margin, often with touches of green or very pale yellow wash, in the second half of the manuscript, some books and prologues being with parted red and blue initials with pen decoration of the same type (e.g. ff. 163v, 176v, 193v, 241, 253), overall in very good condition, bottom half of the final leaf cut away (no loss of text). Bound in Spain or possibly in Italy in the fifteenth century in brown leather over beveled wooden boards (possibly original?) with rounded edges, cut flush with the bookblock, tooled in blind with large compartments (almost completely covering the front and back boards) with intersecting double diagonal fillets forming numerous small compartments, each enclosing a small round stamp with double edges and a point in the center, bounded by double fillets, sewn on five bands of tawed leather (split or double), which enter in the thickness of the board, and then are pegged in channels cut into the inside board (visible inside back cover), formerly with two straps and catches, fastening front to back (partial remains of one strap remains, front board), rebacked with a flat spine with five raised bands, tooled in blind between each, several small holes in back and front covers, housed in a red leather fitted slip case, tooled in gold and lettered on the spine, “MSS. Bible/ 13th Century,” with a protective folded inner covering, slight cracking along front hinge, but in very good, serviceable condition. Dimensions 172 x 123 mm.

This is a rare example of a thirteenth-century portable Bible copied in Spain; its distinctive pen decoration links it to other Bibles made in Castile, and the medieval binding is probably Spanish. Small Bibles were copied in great numbers in the thirteenth century in France (in particular in Paris), England, and Italy. Spanish Bibles of this type still await full scholarly study, but they are significantly less common. Likely made for Franciscan use, it was later used by Dominican friars. Several writers added marginal notes, including one who was interested in comparing the text to the Hebrew.

Provenance

1. Written in Spain in the middle of the thirteenth century, c. 1240-1260. The distinctive style of many of the large, very fine, penwork initials with their intricate, closely packed foliate scrolls, often appearing to be on reverse grounds, are quite similar to those in a group of Bibles now in Paris in the Bibliothèque nationale de France copied in the Kingdom of Castille, possibly in Seville (Avril, Aniel, et al., 1982, especially cat. 93, MS lat. 16264, cat. 208, MS lat. 201, cat. 209, MS lat. 222, and cat. 214, MS n.a.l. 702; see also cat. 92, MS lat 13152 ). Other Spanish features include the distinctive shape of the initial ‘A’ on ff. 218v and 225v, and the Spanish form for ‘z’ (used in the running titles on ff. 225v-227v, and in the Interpretation of Hebrew Names, ff. 327v-328). Some Spanish abbreviations are used by the first scribe, for example, ‘oia’ for omnia, ‘oes’ for omnes, ‘qi’ for quasi; spellings of interest include hedificavit and olocausta.

2. The table of readings for the Mass on f. 2, is contemporary with the Bible and follows Franciscan use (see text below), and is therefore evidence that this Bible was used by Franciscan friars very early in its history, and may even have been made for Franciscans. Unfortunately the exact date of the foundation of the Franciscan convent in Seville is not known; it is recorded in Moorman only as “1260 or before” (Moorman, 1983, p. 449).

3. An ownership note on f. 328v, dated 1475, suggests this book was then owned by Dominican friars, possibly in Italy (Urbino?), although that reading is conjectural, since even under ultraviolet it is not clear: “Hic bibli[a] pertinet ad locum sancti dominici propr[ie] vrbi[nium?]. Que empta <?> de fratre [..]dem domini dei nostri …. defuncto.”

4. Marginal annotations by several hands from the thirteenth through the fifteenth century reflect the interest of the owners and users of this Bible – Franciscan and Dominican friars – in the contents, and significantly, the text of the Vulgate. A note in a contemporary hand on f. 294v, alongside Hebrews chapter 11, commented on the contents of the chapter (“Nota mirabilia de fide per totum capitulum istud”). A fourteenth- or fifteenth-century writer added fairly numerous comments in a quick gothic cursive script that compare the text with the Hebrew: see for example ff. 67v, 76, 174 and 183. Another writer (probably the same writer who added the texts on f. 1v), added textual elements found in earlier Bibles, e.g. f. 146, following the rubric to the Song of Songs (Incipit cantica canticorum), “quod ebrayce dicitur syrasirim” is added in a very small script; the same hand added the allegorical rubrics found in many medieval copies of the Song of Songs, and also added a prologue to Ecclesiasticus in the lower margin of f. 151v (Stegmüller 469). Another writer added lections numbered in Arabic numerals 1-24 on f. 152, alongside Ecclesiasticus chapters 1-2. On f. 219v, bottom margin, there is a triangle, drawn very lightly using the bounding lines, labelled “pater filius spiritus sanctus.”

Oddly, despite the ample evidence that this Bible was used by textually astute friars, no one every commented on the mistakes in the minor prophets, where the prologues were copied as if they were part of the biblical book (on f. 223, the prologue to Habakkuk, was copied as chapter four of Nahum, and on f. 224, the prologue to Zephaniah was copied as chapter three of Habakkuk).

5. Belonged to John S. Doney; extensive notes by Doney inside front cover and f. 1 include passages on monastic scribes from Merryweather, 1849, and on Alcuin from a lecture by the collector William Tite in Top of FormThomson, 1857, p. 55, and a paragraph describing this Bible as English, fourteenth century, all signed, “John S. Doney, June 1, 1870.”

7. Belonged to Coella Lindsay Ricketts (1859-1941) of Chicago, Illinois; calligrapher and illuminator, Ricketts owned a distinguished collection of manuscripts, many of which are now in the Lilly library of the University of Indiana; described in De Ricci, vol. 1, p. 619, no. 11 as English, and suggesting it was once belonged to a monastery near Urbino.

8. Bookseller’s description in English, describing it as Spanish, glued to the verso of the final leaf; modern dealer’s note in pencil, f. 1, “011649”; price code in ink, f. 328, “m/x/.”

9. Belonged to Otto Orren Fisher (d. 1961?), bookplate inside back cover; Fisher received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins in 1922, and appears to have owned an extensive library, including numerous early medical books (he owned one other manuscript, an armorial, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Schoenberg Database 203632).

Notes on various topics related to the Bibles, added in the fifteenth century: notes on how old the Mary was at the time of the Annunciation, how old Jesus was when he was baptized by John, how old he was when he died, and so forth; notes on the burial places of the disciples; notes on the Pslams; and finally a note on the meanings of “lectio.”

Readings for the Mass (Epistle and Gospel) from the first Sunday in Advent to the twenty-fourth Sunday after the octave of Pentecost following Franciscan Use (O’Carroll, 1997, p. 360). Readings are identified by biblical book and modern chapter number, together with the opening words and concluding words. The readings for the twenty-fifth Sunday were added in the same fifteenth- century hand as the preceding article at the very bottom of the list (and subsequently mostly erased). There is no twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost in the Franciscan Missal, but we know this Bible was used by Dominicans in the fifteenth century, and the added readings were probably Dominican Readings, although no other notes were added to modify this Franciscan list according to Dominican Use.

The usual version of the Interpretations of Hebrew Names, here beginning imperfectly in the names beginning with 'F'; commonly found in Bibles dating after c. 1230; Stegmüller, 1950-1980, no. 7709; printed numerous times in the fifteenth century, and in the seventeenth century, when it was included in among the works of Bede, Cologne, 1612, 3:371-480; there is no modern edition, despite its great importance for the history of the Bible, exegesis and preaching in the High Middle Ages.

The text is attributed in one manuscript (Montpellier, Bibl. de la Faculté de Médecine, MS 341) to Stephen Langton (d. 1228), who taught in Paris in the theology school in the later decades of the twelfth century from c. 1206, when he left to become a Cardinal, and then Archbishop of Canterbury in 1207. Langton was famous as a teacher and commentator on the Bible. Giovanna Murano’s study of the text concludes that the evidence is lacking to support this attribution to Langton, leaving the question of the author of this text an important one for further research.

Small, portable Bibles that include the complete text of the Old and New Testaments are one of the great innovations of the thirteenth-century and transformed the use and ownership of the Bible. The first portable Bibles may have been copied in Paris at the end of the 1220s or early 1230s. Many of them were products of the commercial booksellers of Paris. Spanish examples of this type of Bible appear quite early (Paris, BnF MS n.a.l. 836 is dated 1240), but to date there is no comprehensive, scholarly study of the thirteenth-century Bible in Spain. In a recent study by Chiara Ruzzier of portable thirteenth-century Bibles based on a very comprehensive sampling of surviving manuscripts, only 3% of the Bibles in her sample were Spanish in origin (Ruzzier, 2013, p. 109 and chart one). The catalogue of illuminated Spanish manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris (Avril and Aniel, et al., 1982), describes nine examples (four Spanish Bibles are discussed in Light, 1987).

Centralized production in Paris resulted in numerous Bibles that share the same text (the text modern scholars call the Paris Bible). This Bible does follow the text of the Paris Bible in a number of ways. The biblical books are arranged according to the ”new“ Paris order (the same order used today, with the exception that the Gospels are followed by the Pauline Epistles rather than by Acts). Two biblical books found in the Paris Bibles are omitted here, however. This Bible includes 1 Ezra and Neemiah (here with rubric, 2 Ezra), but lacks the book generally called 2 Ezra in the thirteenth century (Stegmüller, 1950-1980, 94,1). It also lacks the Psalms. Note that although the last five leaves after Job, which ends on f. 137v, were cancelled, there is no evidence that the Psalms were ever included (there are numerous thirteenth-century Bibles that omit the Psalms, which lends support to this conclusion). The biblical books are divided according to the modern chapters (although the layout used in most of this manuscript, with chapters beginning with one-line initials numbered in the margins, and often beginning on the same line as the previous chapter, is somewhat old-fashioned), and it includes the Interpretation of Hebrew Names.

In terms of prologues, this Bible lacks the following prologues found in the Paris Bible: the General prologue beginning “Frater ambrosius” (Stegmüller 284), the prologue to 2 Chronicles, “Eusebius ieronimus … Quomodo grecorum” (Stegmüller 327), the prologue to Joel, “Ioel fatuel filius” (Stegmüller 510), and the prologue to Matthew, “Matheus cum primo” (Stegmüller 589). There are two prologues found here that are not found in the Paris Bible: on f. 30, there is a prologue to Leviticus, beginning, “In leuitico continetur lex ….” (Stegmüller 5179) from Isidore of Seville’s prologue to the Old Testament. Prologues from Isidore’s writings are much more common in Spanish Bibles than in Bibles copied elsewhere in Europe, and this prologue is also found in BnF lat. 16264 (Avril, Aniel, et al., no. 93). The prologue to 2 Peter beginning “Per silvanum fidelem,” is intriguing since it has not been identified in Stegmüller or other available sources.

Even more striking evidence of a close relationship between the Bible described here and the Paris Bible, is that our Bible includes five of the prologues that did not circulate in manuscripts of the Bible without the Gloss before the Paris Bible (Light, 2012, p. 385): namely, the prologues to Ecclesiastes, “Memini me (Stegmüller 462), to Amos, “Hic Amos” (Stegmüller 513), to Maccabees, “Cum sim” and “Memini me” (Stegmüller 547 and 553), and to the Apocalyplse, “Omnes before Apoc” (Stegmüller 839). Despite this apparent close dependence on the Paris Bible, however, examination of selected passages in Numbers and Joshua suggest that the actual biblical text is not that of the Paris Bible (at least in these two books of the Bible).

In summary, we know rather a lot about how this Bible was made and used. Details of its text suggest that it was probably copied from locally available (possibly older) exemplars, but with knowledge of many of the up-to-date features of the Paris Bible (the order of biblical books, modern chapters, the new corpus of prologues, and the Interpretation of Hebrew Names). The marginal notes reflecting study of the text of the Bible help round out the picture, and reflect the importance of the study of the sacred text by both mendicant orders, since this is an example of a Bible demonstrably used both by the Franciscans (based on the list of Epistle and Gospel readings added at the beginning), and then later in its history by the Dominicans, who added an ownership note in 1470.

Merryweather, F. S. Bibliomania in the Middle Ages: Or, Sketches of Bookworms, Collectors, Bible Students, Scribes, and Illuminators, from the Anglo-Saxon and Norman Periods, to the Introduction of Printing into England; with Anecdotes Illustrating the History of the Monastic Libraries of Great Britain in the Olden Time, London, 1849.

Ruzzier, Chiara. ”The Miniaturisation of Bible Manuscripts in the Thirteenth Century: A Comparative Study,“ in Eyal Poleg and Laura Light, eds., Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, Leiden and Boston, 2013, pp. 105-125.

Thomson, R. A Lecture on some of the most Characteristic Features of Illuminated Manuscripts, from the VIII. to the XVIII. century ... as delivered in the theatre of the London Institution, on Wednesday, January 21st, 1857, by William Tite, Esq., to which is added a second lecture on the Materials and Practice of Illuminators: with biographical and literary notices illustrative of the Art of Illumination. London, 1857.